The kitchen part II

The Kitchen: Part 2

Pendants over the sink, to bring something into the volume of the room, as kitchens can often feel horizontal.

Think about refrigerator drawers which are grouped by usage rather than one big refrigerator. For example, ones that can take fish, meat and vegetables on an island.

Consider tongue and groove on the walls. Remember that your splashback doesn't have to be tile: try glass as in my London kitchen, you can also use tiles as a kind of wallpaper. Consider separating your stove and your oven. A cheap option is to have open shelving underneath your counter and cover it with a curtain. Good secondhand curtains can be bought off eBay and then resized to fit.

Panelling in the Kitchens

I regularly use panelling as a backsplash both in kitchens and bathrooms and discusses different materials for this in lesson 21. If the panelling is behind a cooker or somewhere prone to getting a bit mucky, I use a piece of glass against the panelling, so you can still see the painted wood but it's protected by glass. Normally glass in a kitchen is tempered, which means that it is more resistant to higher temperatures than regular glass. Overall, tempered glass is at least four times stronger than regular glass.

Banquette Seating

The standard banquette seat depth is between 55 and 75cm (22 to 29 inches). The greater the depth, the more reclining the seat will be.

Design notes

• Corian topped units: Designed by Rita